


on a mission (to recapture your wayward heart)

by rangerhitomi



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Gen, M/M, Pokemon Ranger AU, Rogue Ranger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 06:59:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5995975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rangerhitomi/pseuds/rangerhitomi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yuma refuses to believe that his best friend would ever become a rogue Ranger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	on a mission (to recapture your wayward heart)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gootarts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gootarts/gifts).



> knowledge of Pokemon Ranger is not needed to understand this fic

Children in Almia grow up hearing the heroic tales of the region’s Pokémon Rangers, warriors of justice who protect Pokémon, people, and the land; children all over dream of becoming Rangers, dream of working with the Ranger Union, dream of changing the world.

Yuma is no different. He is awed by the Rangers’ dexterity, intimate knowledge of Pokémon and nature, and – there’s no other word he can think of to describe them – _coolness_.

“Weren’t they cool?” He tugs on his best friend’s arm after school one afternoon, having enjoyed an outdoor lesson from two visiting Union Rangers. “They were so cool, huh Shark?”

“Yeah, I guess.” His friend tries to shrug indifferently but even Yuma notices the lousy attempt at hiding a smile.

Yuma bounces a few feet ahead, wheeling his arms in circles. “The way they control the Styles—“

“Styler,” Shark corrects, “and you’re gonna—“

His warning comes too late; Yuma windmills too hard and loses his balance, falling to the cobblestone road. Shark sighs and hurries over to help him up, but Yuma just laughs it off.

“I’m gonna be a Ranger,” he announces loudly, and a few passersby chuckle at this. Yuma doesn’t notice. “In fact,” he goes on, brushing his pants off and resuming his walk with Shark, “I’m gonna be the _top_ Top Ranger.” He grabs Shark’s hand and bounces up and down again. “What about you, do you wanna be a Ranger too?”

“Huh?” Shark’s face turns red. “I… I don’t know. Maybe?”

“You should!” Yuma announces, letting go of Shark’s hand. He skips forward a few steps and stares at the sky, where a flock of Wingull flies overhead. “We can be partners. Go on patrol and stuff together, save the world together. Right, Shark?”

It sounds fun, worthwhile, and for a second Shark imagines himself in the Rangers’ red and black uniform, racing through forests, swimming with Pokémon in the cool, clear sea; he thinks then of the respect of the entire world, the power he would hold. But he’s only ten years old, and he has a while yet to decide.

“Yeah,” he finds himself saying, “It sounds cool.”

* * *

 

The sky is alight in vivid golds and reds and oranges, which reflects off the Puel Harbor’s gently rippling waters. Almia’s sunsets are a treasure to be protected and loved – _Almia_ is a treasure to be protected and loved – and it’s possibly at that moment Yuma realizes that this _is_ where he wants to stay for the rest of his life.

Shark is sitting nearby on the hillside, staring out at the sea with a tiny smile gracing the corners of his lips. The lightest breeze plays with his hair, with strands falling into his eyes, but he makes no movement to brush it away.  Yuma watches him through his peripheral, smiling, but as the warm sunset fades into twilight’s cool purples, his smile fades with it.

“I’m gonna miss you,” he says abruptly, before he can talk himself out of saying the words again.

Shark doesn’t tear his gaze away from the ocean. Maybe Yuma should have expected it; a Ranger like Shark would thrive best in a more tropical region. But doesn’t make the news of their respective assignments any less difficult – Yuma is to stay in Almia, and Shark to Oblivia, the archipelago region where hardly anything exciting happens. But Shark is content where Yuma is not; after a year together at the Ranger School, where they saw each other every day and teamed up during practical exercises and went camping together and sat through more detentions than anyone else in their class combined – it will be lonely in Almia without Shark there.

“It’s only for six months,” Shark says finally, “to help establish the archaeology heritage sites.” He shrugs and looks away from the cotton candy sunset, away from Yuma. “They’ll call me back eventually.”

“You’ll call and stuff, right?” Yuma tries to keep the note of pleading out of his voice, but he’s not sure he’s successful.

“Course,” Shark says without looking at him, and Yuma relaxes, and they sit on the hillside until the stars come out.

* * *

 

Four months pass and Shark hasn’t called once.

* * *

 

There’s definitely something going on at the Union headquarters; even through his sleepy haze, Yuma hears yelling and people thundering by the door to the Ranger barracks, and there are eighteen messages on his voice mail that he usually silences before going to bed because some people liked to send out mass “good morning!” messages at five in the morning and Yuma isn’t about that life.

Most of them are the same Union-wide announcement, from one of the Operators he’d befriended at the Ranger School, Kotori—

_All Rangers not currently on assignment are to report to the Union HQ as soon as possible_

–but there are messages from some of his other friends in the field asking what was going on, was it a drill or an actual emergency, should they go back if their assignment was a routine patrol, and Yuma sat in his blankets, running his hand through his disheveled bedhead, a growing sense of unease filling him.

 The shouting is just as unintelligible as it was when he was half asleep, and several Rangers running by with huge papers rolled up under their arms cast strange looks at him as they pass – pity, maybe, or concern, but either way, Yuma makes his way to the main operations on the second floor, where the noise is loudest, and freezes.

On the giant computer screen behind Top Rangers Kaito and Chris is a series of pictures of Shark, with shorthand text flashing across the screen:

_Ranger Ryoga Kamishiro, last seen: Oblivia Ruins, Sophian Island, Oblivia; Fri 7 June_

_Oblivia communication system offline; suspected sabotage of Wireless Tower on Renbow Island_

“What—“

Yuma’s mind reels and he barely realizes that his knees have given out until a strong pair of hands pulls him up by the upper arms. _Shark is missing?_

“Yuma.” It’s Kaito, the Top Ranger that Yuma has always admired the most; he’s skilled in ways Yuma could only dream of being, but at that moment, Yuma is angry and betrayed. “You should probably come with—“

“He’s been missing for a week and no one told me?”

Several Rangers and Operators pause what they’re doing and look up; Yuma realizes that the room is suddenly very quiet but he’s too upset to care.

Chris and Kaito exchange a _look_ , which only riles up Yuma more. “Not here,” Chris says in a low voice, but Yuma steps back as Kaito reaches for his arm again.

“I’m his best friend! He could be hurt or—”

This time, Kaito succeeds in grabbing his arm and pulls him away, Chris directing the staring Rangers and Operators to get back to work, and follows into the smaller Situation Room off the main center.

Chris closes the door behind them. “No one told you because Ryoga Kamishiro isn’t missing,” he says without preamble.

“What are you talking about?” Yuma balls his fists up. “The screen said he was missing! Isn’t that what you’re telling the others?”

The Top Rangers exchange another look and Yuma slams his fist on a computer desk. It hurts and he doesn’t care.

“What is going _on_!”

“Well, he is missing, in a way,” Kaito begins, “but not in the way you think.”

Missing is missing, in Yuma’s view, and he fights down the bitter words he longs to throw at the pair of them for standing there calm, not telling him what’s going on, while his lifetime best friend is missing and hasn’t been seen in a week and—

“He never called, did he?” Kaito says quietly, and Yuma clenches his fist again, but this time, tears burn at the corners of his eyes as well. “He never intended to. He’s not missing because something happened to him. He’s missing because he doesn’t want anyone to find him.”

“I don’t understand,” Yuma mumbles, dragging his gloved hand across his face under the pretense of brushing his hair out of his eyes.

“Why do some people disappear because they don’t _want_ to be found, Yuma?”

Kaito’s voice is distant, because dread fills Yuma’s entire body. He leans heavily against the desk and turns away, knowing, _knowing_ what they’re hinting at but refusing to believe a word of it because Shark, his best friend in the entire world, _wouldn’t—_

It’s Chris who speaks the words Yuma tries to ignore, words that cut so deep into Yuma’s heart that he might as well have cut into Yuma with a knife. “Ryoga Kamishiro has gone rogue, Yuma. He’s made the Union into an enemy.”

* * *

 

It’s not true.

It’s _not_ true.

It’s not _true_.

Yuma repeats these words to himself over and over, and it’s a long flight from Almia to Oblivia on the back of a Staraptor he captured near the Union. There’s another reason Shark is missing, he’s sure of it, and there’s some misunderstanding; he’s been threatened, he’s been held hostage, _something_ , but the closer he gets to Sophian Island, the less convincing his own mind becomes.

He regrets having to leave behind Darumaka, his trusted partner Pokémon, but tropical islands aren’t the best place for a fire type – and he doesn’t exactly have the blessing of the Union for this trip. He would be in a tremendous amount of trouble when he returned to Almia – they’ve been trying to contact him every three minutes for the entire trip, and he has to mute the voice mail function – but it would be worth it if he can find out the truth of what happened to Shark.

Eventually, the incessant voice mails stop abruptly, and Yuma knows he’s crossed into Oblivia. The Aqua Resort comes into view, all stone architecture converted into a famous vacation spot that Yuma would not have minded staying in under any other circumstances, but that’s not where he wants to go this time. The Oblivia Ruins are his destination; he doesn’t expect to find Shark there if the Union knows that was the last place he had been seen, but there’s got to be something there that might explain Shark’s disappearance—

He’s so distracted he doesn’t notice that he is sharing the airspace with someone else.

The Staraptor lets out a loud screech, and there’s a violent lurch, and Yuma finds himself falling… falling…

…falling…

* * *

 

He’s soaked all the way through, every muscle is sore, and his eyes don’t seem to want to open. The only sound is a soft rush of water, and he’s lying on something hard and uneven, which his hands slide over during his attempt to drag his body up. It feels like stone, which is confirmed when he finally manages to pry his eyes apart.

His first thought is that he’s at the bottom of some kind of sinkhole, surrounded by towering walls of rock while a slender waterfall rushes over the side to fill the hole. It’s not a place he recognizes from any of his geography studies at school.

But as he looks up at the waterfall, he sees the watery outline of a familiar figure standing behind it. When the figure retreats into the cave behind the waterfall, Yuma ignores his sore body and follows.

* * *

 

Deep in the cave, there is a large stone room, upon whose walls hung a series of very old paintings. A small doorway leads on, deeper into the cave, but Yuma stops in front of the first mural, which depicts a man in armor kneeling in front of three armed figures, hands outstretched, as the three push their swords into the kneeling man’s body.

Yuma’s stomach turns over as he looks over the remaining six murals, each depicting a figure dying in increasingly horrible ways – one surrounded by fire, turning a sword against himself; one kneeling at the feet of a man with an axe; one dying in battle; one with arms outstretched in front of an ancient dragon Pokémon, being peppered with arrows; one plummeting into the raging sea; and one engulfed by a strange red aura, surrounded by bodies…

…a familiar figure…

As he stands in front of the seventh mural, heart pounding, wondering what these murals mean and why Shark looks like one of the ancient people who clearly suffered a horrible fate, a muffled yell in the adjacent chamber brings him back to the present with an abrupt jolt.

“Shark?” he calls out desperately, because he wants there to be a reason he was brought here, to this chamber; he wants his doubts destroyed.

And when he enters the smaller chamber and sees his best friend tied to a chair, still in his Oblivian Ranger uniform, his doubts are shattered and fear seizes him.

It’s a trap, it has to be, because otherwise it would be too easy, but Shark is there, gagged, with wide eyes that are begging for help, and Yuma throws himself to his knees next to the chair and fumbles with the knot holding Shark’s hands in place.

Shark reaches blindly for Yuma’s hand, and Yuma blinks back tears as he holds it for a second, gives it a brief squeeze, and then his entire world turns upside down.

It isn’t Shark.

The Zoroark pretending to be Shark snaps the ropes with ease, and drags Yuma to his feet, holding him tightly as Yuma struggles to break through, to breathe through the Pokémon’s vice grip on his shoulders and chest.

There’s a high-pitched, wild laugh, and a man with vivid orange hair, gaits across the small chamber, hands in his pockets. He’s wearing a silver gauntlet that goes to his elbow, and looks as horribly out of place on him as the black leather jacket in a tropical region. Then, Yuma realizes too late, he must have been standing there the whole time and Yuma hadn’t noticed in his haste to get to Shark.

“Oh maaaaan,” he drawls, the maniacal grin on his face mirroring the Zoroark’s, “Rangers are so _gullible_.”

“Where’s Shark?” Yuma manages to gasp out, and the man taps his chin with his un-gauntleted hand.

“Shark… Shark… Oh!” He leans close, eyes narrowed, hands on his hips. The effect of the narrowed eyes and sinister, toothy grin make him look deranged. “You mean… Nasch?”

Before Yuma can do more than try to gasp out _what_ , a familiar voice rings out behind him.

“Vector, let go.”

The man – Vector – exhales sharply through his nose and straightens up. “Just chatting with our little Ranger friend, Naschy.”

No, Yuma thinks hazily, as Vector had not instructed Zoroark to release his stranglehold on Yuma’s neck, that couldn’t be—

“I said let _go._ ”

A jolt of pain shoots through Yuma’s knees as the Zoroark drops him unceremoniously on the stone floor, where he remains, unmoving. Blood pounds in his ears, because the voice now arguing with Vector belongs to the same person he came here to find, and he is giving no indication of needing saving of any kind.

 _Kaito was right_ , he thinks desperately, and he can’t stop himself from shaking, can’t stop the tears from falling, because his best friend couldn’t be… can’t be…

“I told you to bring him here unharmed,” Shark was saying in a clipped tone, “not to shoot him out of the sky and almost drown him.”

“He’s _alive_ , isn’t he?”

“No thanks to you!”

“He’s a _Ranger_ , Nasch! They’re—“

“Not a threat,” Shark says firmly, “so go do what I told you to do and keep them busy at the Resort. I’m sure they tracked him to this island before I disabled the Styler’s signal.” 

Vector scoffs, but walks away. He beckons his gauntleted arm and the Zoroark follows. They leave without another word and Yuma finally looks up.

Shark is wearing a purple jacket inlaid with green gems over a low cut shirt, not his Ranger uniform. In place of a capture Styler, he wears a gold gauntlet identical to Vector’s silver one, and on his face is a serious, sorrowful look; his eyes are soft and troubled as he looks down at the Ranger crying silently on the stone floor.

“Yuma,” he murmurs, and kneels next to him.

“Why?” Yuma whimpers, wiping his face on his shoulder sleeve. “I thought—I thought you wanted to make the world a better place, that’s what you always said—“

“I did,” Shark says quietly, and as Yuma looks up into his face, he can see that Shark is telling the truth. “I do. Look.” He pulls off the gauntlet, sets it aside. Yuma is struck by a sudden urge to take it and throw it into the deepest parts of the ocean. “When I got here, they had me working on protection. I had to keep a lot of really angry Pokémon away from these ruins, had to help the archaeologists go deeper into the cave than they ever had before. It’s impossible to reach this cave any other way than through that waterfall, see?”

Yuma nods slowly. “There weren’t any wild Pokémon on my way through, though.” Which, he reflects, is strange. Surely, a long-abandoned ancient cave would be filled with Pokémon making it their home.

Shark’s eyes flicker toward the gauntlet. “That’s because I kept them away. I had to lead you here safely and quickly, in case the Union found this place faster than I thought. They’re all over the island, you know. Looking for me.”

Yuma’s stomach clenches. “Why are they looking for you?” His voice is bitter. “Because you stole Union technology?”

Shark’s eyes cloud with unmistakable anger. “When I first reached those murals, I felt something… dark. Powerful. And then the nightmares started, every night we were camped here. They had to shake me awake, they told the Union that I was screaming in my sleep, and the Union wanted to bring me back to Almia to have me examined.”

Chills run through Yuma’s body; he hugs himself to keep from shaking.

“There was something here that called to me,” Shark continues, voice quiet, almost as though talking to himself. “There was something in those murals, those stories I could _understand_ , I could _feel_. It’s like whatever happened to those people in the murals happened to me. And I knew I couldn’t go back to the Union. I _had_ to stay here. So I led the researchers back to the Resort… and then escaped.” He rests his hand on Yuma’s forearm, grips tight, and looks into Yuma’s eyes for the first time – really looks – and Yuma swallows the lump in his throat because it’s like he’s staring into a hurricane. “I used the Styler technology to set up Pokémon hoards, roadblocks, so the researchers couldn’t get back in, and even the local area Rangers couldn’t handle it.”

“I just don’t understand why,” Yuma whispers. “Why do all that… why betray the Union… for a feeling?”

Shark’s hand takes his, hesitantly at first, then tightly, and Yuma’s breath hitches in his throat; Shark’s hand is freezing. “Because I _am_ one of the people in those murals, Yuma.”

Yuma wouldn’t have been surprised if his heart had stopped beating.

“Vector, too,” Shark goes on, and there’s irritation there, “and there are others, seven of us. I found them all over Oblivia, one on each island, and there was this feeling that we all needed to be together. Our memories are missing, our memories of our past selves… Yuma, you have to understand, we need to recover our memories. We… we all died for a reason, and we think… we were trying to stop something terrible from happening. If we can remember—“

“Maybe you would know how to stop it if it happened again,” Yuma finishes quietly.

“Yeah.”

They fall into silence, kneeling on the hard stone, still holding onto each other’s hands. Yuma is full of questions, can’t shake the nagging feeling that there’s something Shark isn’t telling him, but the crushing doubt has eased somewhat, and Yuma can breathe normally again.

“What can I do?”

“What?” Shark frowns.

“You brought me here for a reason,” Yuma insists.

Shark’s eyes flicker once more toward the gauntlet lying on the floor. “…yeah… you won’t like it.”

“I don’t like any of this, but if it keeps you from doing something stupid—“

Shark laughs, but it’s not genuine. “Just… know that you can say no.”

Yuma stays silent, because there’s no way he could ever say no, no matter what Shark asked him to do, because he knows Shark would do the same for him.

“This armor,” Shark says in a rush, “is an ancient kind of… sort of like a Styler, I guess. It can control Pokémon though, completely, and it’s really dangerous because sometimes it… can control the person wearing it, too.”

And suddenly Yuma knows what Shark is about to ask him to do, and he is seized with the same crippling terror he had when Kaito told him that Ryoga Kamishiro had turned on the Union.

“If it controls me,” Shark says forcefully. “I want you to—“

“Shark, no!” and Yuma wrenches himself free, scrambles to his feet. “No! I won’t!”

“I’m not telling you to kill me, Yuma.” Shark doesn’t move from the floor. “I just want you to stop me, even if you have to hurt me, so I don’t hurt anyone else.”

Yuma’s shoulders slump. He closes his eyes and lets the burning tears drip from his eyelashes. “And what if it controls you and I don’t ever… get _you_ back?”

He doesn’t hear Shark stand, doesn’t hear him approaching, but when Shark wraps Yuma in a tight embrace, he’s warm.

“That’s why I wanted it to be you,” he murmurs in Yuma’s ear, and Yuma buries his face in Shark’s shoulder. “You… you will definitely be able to pull me back. Will you?”

_We can be partners. Go on patrol and stuff together, save the world together. Right, Shark?_

“Yeah.” Yuma returns the embrace. The gravity of the situation is not lost on him; by saying yes, he would be labeling himself a rogue, would be condemning his dreams to become a Top Ranger, would risk throwing away his entire future. “We’re partners, right?”

After all, in his dreams for the future, wasn’t Shark always with him?


End file.
